simply by sailing - Personalising Learning

Cameron Herold
Using traits - "Start building a network of fellow entrepreneurs that understand your passion and don’t make you feel guilty about always chasing it."

Sir Ken Robinson's Talk on personalising learning by allowing people to follow their passions. May2010.

Sir Ken Robinson (what he is a sir of?) speaks about a crisis of human resources due to the poor use of talents. Successful communities depend on a range of talents and abilities. He asserts that the standardised factory model of education dislocates people from their natural talents. He likens the customised approach to education to an agricultural model because of its organic nature. Personally, I find this confusing because there is nothing flexible in an agricultural world - everything has its season. However, a customised (aka personalised?) model can create the conditions in which people flourish.

It is time for revolution rather than reform so education can be enjoyed rather than endured, so people can discover and develop their passions because what they are doing "resonates" with their spirit.

This got me thinking about personalising the learning for my Yr 9s. If I begin with the end on mind, I want them to be literate, numerate (?) and able to manage their own learning by the time they leave our school. I know some have massive literacy weaknesses, so why isn't more of my time spent addressing that need rather than other areas of the curriculum? Without filling in the maths and language gaps they have, they have limited chance of success in Yr 10+. What I would like to trial in Term 3, are Individualised Learning Plans for all of 9 K R. I plan to devise a tool to gather information to see what when they could learn about would they want to learn more about. I would like to gather info on their strenghts and weaknesses and to build the development of the basic skills in to a context their choose.

I wonder:

if personalising the learning is more important for some children than others such as those at risk and the EME group?
how flexible assessments in my learning area can be? Do I really need to assess a static image when it's more important that they can read?
how keen the other 9 K R teachers will be to use their time and space w the class for intensive projects like this?

On another level, I must read more about Montesorri and Rudolf Steiner philosophies.

Gathering Interests from Learners